The Age of Discretion

by Virginia Duigan

  THE BULLDOG

  Viv is on her way to a lunch date with a lawyer. His name (given or surname, she forgot to ask) is Drummond. It is cold and windy today but at least it’s not currently raining. Drummond has suggested a small, busy restaurant in Islington which Viv, providentially, knows. Their pre-meeting texts have been brief. He has booked the table at the far end in the name, no surprises there, of Drummond. He sounds efficient and to the point, as Viv would expect from a lawyer.

  Bearing in mind the sartorial gaffe she made at her first meeting with Dev, Viv has considered a few alternatives, laying them out on the bed. Geoff came in at one stage to complain about the bathroom renovations taking forever and costing the earth, and asked what on earth she thought she was doing. She said she was culling her wardrobe. Or that’s what she thought she was doing, Geoff. Tossing into the bin a visibly moth-eaten sweater Oxfam wouldn’t want.

  ‘Don’t throw anything out without asking me,’ Geoff said, ‘I might like it.’ He was trying to be nice. Well, that was better than the opposite. But he didn’t give her bottom a smack as he might once have done.

  She decided not to attempt a sartorial statement of any kind. She would be conservative and anonymous (although this could be construed as making the statement that you are not making one). To this end she is wearing a plain black skirt, a long-sleeved T-shirt, tapestry jerkin and black boots. She has cleaned some mud off the boots. The heels are worn down, but Drummond is unlikely to notice since, presumably, he will not be inspecting her feet.

  She rejected the Tiffany necklace and silver bracelet and the sixties coat, substituting a warm jacket with a faux-fur collar and a red beret. Ageing hippy (Geoff’s phrase) is not the look she’s decided she wants today.

  The beret was not a good idea. Sudden wind gusts keep blowing it off until she jams it in her pocket. The restaurant has a doorway inside a recessed porch, where she does a quick running repair to her hair. As she opens the door she can discern the outline of a man sitting at the end at a table for two, and he seems to be looking in her direction. Without her glasses she can’t see him clearly.

  He stands up when she arrives and they smile a polite greeting. Only when she has sat down and hung her bag over the back of the chair do they really look at each other.

  And then there is a disorientating and most uncomfortable pause, as it dawns on both of them that they have met before. They have, in fact, had dealings, midway between the personal and impersonal, on a regular basis once every six months, over a period of years.

  The look of bemused horror on the face of the gentleman now seated opposite Viv (elderly, she would have to say, and cadaverous) in a navy yachting blazer is the opposite of his professional expression. Quite unlike the look in his eyes as he bends over her in a dental mask and explores her gums with an array of implements. He looks quite different without his white coat and away from his practice in Cavendish Square, behind John Lewis.

  Viv’s eyes have widened. She is visualising the waiting room of the practice in question. Alongside predictable journals such as Country Life and Architectural Digest, there are often a few copies of the Spectator and Private Eye. It was in this very waiting room that she first saw the ad for the Discretion Agency.

  ‘Well, I’ll be—’ She restrains herself from performing a hammy action like reeling back in the chair. ‘You’re Mr Byron Blake, my periodontist.’ Her laugh sounds forced. ‘You’re a dontist, not a lawyer. Unless you’re holding down two jobs. It’s jaw-jaw, not law-law!’

  As an off-the-cuff effort she thinks this is rather good. But Mr Blake is plainly not amused. She suspects he finds it either juvenile or mildly offensive, and perhaps both. He has a long lugubrious face and pronounced bags under the eyes, which she hadn’t taken in during their periods of close contact.

  ‘And you are Vivien er, ah …’ A dull red flush is spreading upwards from his neck.

  ‘Quarry.’

  ‘Oh yes, I’m so sorry. How silly of me. Vivien Quarry, of course you are. Yes.’

  ‘Can you believe this? We’re in London, not some parish-pump backwater where everyone knows everyone. What a mind-boggling coincidence.’

  ‘Yes, extraordinary. An astounding coincidence. Really, most astonishing.’

  Like the synonyms, the conversation (if you can call it that) seems to be exhausted. It is immediately obvious to Viv, and she trusts to Mr Blake as well, that any development of their relationship into an alternative province would be quite out of the question. While cordial, their dealings have always been purely professional. The habit is far too ingrained.

  Besides, there’s something about a person knowing the interior of one’s mouth so intimately that would make the possibility of them knowing about another unrelated area somehow …

  This train of thought is interrupted by the arrival of the waitress. She delivers the menus into their eager, outstretched hands. Rarely, Viv imagines, can two people have fallen upon their menus with such palpable relief. As if they were life buoys thrown to the drowning. She looks at the hovering waitress and then at Mr Blake.

  ‘I suppose we’d better order something since we’re here?’ At least eating would give them something constructive to do. ‘Or do you think we should just – cut our losses, and flee from the scene of the crime?’ She laughs. ‘Not that any crime has been committed.’ Or, indeed, is likely to be.

  Mr Blake, so capable in the dental arena – one of the top men, it is said – seems to be verging on comatose with mortification. He gives a one-word reply in a low voice without looking at her. Was it a yes or a no? And which proposition did it address?

  He is now bent over the table, poring over his menu as if it were a map of hidden treasure. Or a particularly inaccessible receding gum. Is discomfort making him hungry? Viv herself has temporarily lost her appetite.

  ‘Can I get you some drinks while you are making a decision?’ the waitress asks. She has a placid face and strong Eastern European accent and appears not to have noticed anything amiss. The mention of drinks seems to bring Mr Blake to his senses. He sits up and takes belated charge of the situation. ‘We – yes, that’s right. We’d better have a fortifying drink.’ He extracts a pair of bi-focals from his top pocket. ‘What would you like, er, ah …’

  ‘It’s still Vivien. I don’t usually drink wine at lunch but I think I’d love a rather large glass of something. Anything, really. As long as it’s inebriating.’

  He traverses the short list rapidly, with his forefinger. ‘Would a pinot noir suit you? That might do the trick.’ She nods, rather too vigorously.

  ‘Well, er, Vivien,’ he says, ‘so here we are, adrift on an open sea.’ It sounds falsely hearty, as well as desperate. She fears his brief impersonation of a man in charge may be about to unravel.

  ‘Up shit creek without a paddle,’ she echoes. This is a colloquial phrase of Julia’s. ‘Or a compass, either.’ Too much nautical already. Pull yourself together, woman. ‘Of course, Martin – that’s Martin Glover, from the agency –’ she leans towards Mr Blake and delivers this loaded word in a whisper, in case he would rather it were not mentioned aloud, ‘he wasn’t to know I was one of your patients. And how could he? He thought you were a lawyer. Lawyers have clients, not patients.’

  The words agency and lawyer, even though they couldn’t have been overheard, cause Mr Blake to flinch twice. Viv is curious about the extent of his double life. Or triple, if you add the stratagem of his false identity. She says briskly, ‘So, Mr Blake, we’ve caught each other out in a little escapade. Do you think most people going to the Discretion Agency would give a –’ better not say false, it sounds vaguely criminal – ‘would give a different name?’

  Her companion blinks rapidly, as if he finds this a confronting question. ‘You know, I really wouldn’t know. Perhaps they do. I was only given your Christian name. I thought this was how they do things. I’m afraid I didn’t think to ask for your surname.’

  His strangled expression and halting
delivery suggests this might have been a sound thing to have asked for. Viv is in agreement.

  ‘Well,’ she says bracingly, ‘it’s a shame you didn’t ask Martin Glover. My surname is relatively unusual, so it might have helped avoid this unfortunate turn of events. It wouldn’t have helped me to ask him, of course, because you gave the agency a pseudonym.’

  Too confrontational? ‘I must admit, a friend did strongly suggest I should take your course and adopt an alias. Do you think it’s an advisable precaution? At the start, I mean.’

  And this should have been phrased better. The start. It could be construed as a hint that she might not be averse to something further. She sneaks a glance at Mr Blake.

  He is shaking his head. ‘I really couldn’t say. I haven’t spoken to anyone else on this subject. Only Glover, really.’

  His face wears a harassed, hunted look. The kind that someone who has just parachuted into a field of cannibals might wear.

  Viv says she hasn’t confided in anyone else either, apart from a couple of friends. ‘Neither of them is a patient of yours,’ she adds reassuringly. Mr Blake wipes his face with his napkin. ‘Martin Glover did say that most people on his books are doing this kind of thing for the first time. I found that quite cheering.’

  ‘Yes, it is rather. Yes.’

  They have each polished off their first glass of wine in no time at all. Mr Blake pours another, in a hurry. Instead of abating, the flush has spread to his cheeks. Besides looking ill at ease he looks ill period, which is a bit of a worry. But perhaps this is his default appearance. She should have regarded him more closely while her teeth were being cleaned. Difficult though, as he was always wearing a surgical mask.

  ‘Mr Blake, may I call you Byron?’

  ‘Of course, please do, I should have—’

  ‘Or perhaps you’d rather I used the name Drummond?’ He appears too discomfited to reply. ‘Although I suppose there’s not much point in maintaining a nom de plume, or is it a nom de guerre, when the rationale has ceased to exist.’ Was there a particular reason for choosing the name? ‘Does Martin Glover think Drummond is your real name, Byron?’

  ‘Ah, yes, I expect he would. Yes.’

  ‘And he thinks you’re a lawyer, too? Since I imagine you didn’t wear your white coat to the interview. Or,’ a smile, ‘your surgical mask.’

  ‘I imagine he must, yes.’

  The topic hasn’t delivered the hoped-for conversational boost, but she’s not giving up on it. Their food has arrived. It’s eclectic: risotto porcini for her and steak frites for him. He falls upon his plate as if he has just ended a hunger strike. Viv is hopeful that her own appetite might be returning. She also hopes the food will put something back into Mr Blake’s tank. Into Drummond’s tank. Byron’s.

  She persists. ‘Byron, did you fancy yourself as a bit of a Drummond, then?’

  This was fairly innocuous, she’d have thought, but his reaction suggests it is a deeply personal question. The high colour has spread upwards to his forehead. ‘Ah. I’m afraid you have exposed my cover. I always detested my given name.’

  ‘That’s understandable. You were teased at school, I expect. Byron is alarmingly prescriptive, isn’t it? Drummond is definitely more – suave. More you, I daresay.’ This small stretch of the imagination at last produces the vestige of a smile.

  ‘Which did you intend it to be, first or second? Or perhaps you were envisaging a standalone Drummond, like one of those entertainers who only have one name. Madonna, for example. Or Liberace.’

  The mention of Madonna looks unwelcome enough; that of Liberace seems to leave him aghast. ‘Not at all. No, nothing like that. It was the name of the hero of a series of books I enjoyed as a child. About a gentleman adventurer. Sapper was the author.’

  ‘Another standalone pen name. You mean Hugh “the Bulldog” Drummond, I presume? Yes, I remember him well. Well, rather dimly at this distance. So are you Hugh, or Bulldog?’

  ‘Well, I’m, er, ah, Drummond Cornwallis.’ Byron is looking even more uncomfortable, if possible.

  ‘Cornwallis. Another unusual name. After another book character? Or a pet? A horse? Or a hamster?’

  ‘After Charles Cornwallis, the first Marquess; 1738 to 1805.’

  ‘Is that right? The first Marquess?’

  Chatting to Byron Blake is rather like pulling teeth. How very apposite. A shame she can’t share the insight with others who would appreciate it. This last question, though, inspires a relative effusion.

  ‘Cornwallis had a remarkably varied career, as you could occasionally have in those days. As an army officer and a colonial administrator. He was a British general in the American War of Independence, not altogether successfully, and afterwards served in India and in Ireland. He was a distant relative of mine.’

  ‘Well, good heavens.’

  ‘Admittedly, very distant.’

  Clearly this is one of the Bulldog’s principal outside interests. ‘And the lawyer component of your persona?’ Viv prompts. Gently, she hopes. ‘I suppose you couldn’t make yourself a colonial administrator, could you? Not these days, it would be asking for trouble. And gentleman adventurers are a bit thin on the ground now, too.’

  She tips the whole bowl of grated parmesan on the risotto, which is bland. ‘Drummond could have been in the army, like the first Marquess. In military intelligence, maybe? Or a dashing James Bond figure. Why did you decide to make him a lawyer, Byron?’

  ‘Ah. There you are again. I’m afraid nowadays people often have preconceived ideas about soldiering. As they do about dentistry. The law is somewhat less polarising, as it were. Perhaps more feasible to a wider cross-section.’

  Viv decides against voicing doubts. Did he wish he had chosen the law as a profession, then? He looks pensive. ‘I’d like to have been a lawyer, I sometimes think. I perhaps would like to have taken silk, in another life.’

  ‘Yes, I can imagine you being a very effective judge,’ Viv says, although she has trouble imagining him in any occupation other than his own. ‘But in this life you’re a good periodontist. An exceptionally good one, in this life.’

  Which is true. She made the statement in the hope of bucking him up. But it seems to make him, if anything, more depressed. One could explore this territory further, no question. But she decides, selfishly she fears, to solicit his opinion on something of more immediate interest to herself.

  ‘Do you suppose Martin Glover might be a little naive, Drummond?’ Her mind toys briefly with Dev. ‘He seems to take you – and others – at face value. The previous person I met was a fortune hunter. He couldn’t divest me of mine, as I didn’t have one. But this particular ambition had slipped under Martin’s radar.’

  The Bulldog, as she has begun to think of him (although he looks more like a bloodhound) seems a touch less strained. The steak must be helping. And the wine. He is a good glass and a half ahead of her and his complexion can only be called florid. But perhaps it’s a relief to have been unmasked? He’s relaxing to some extent, to the point of initiating an interesting remark.

  He agrees that being prepared to take people at face value does seem to be central to Glover’s modus operandi. But he thinks that’s just part of the game. Viv is intrigued to hear the business of the agency described in this way. Glover says it’s not an exacting pursuit in any way, it’s more of a sideline. A little amusement. He thinks Glover is playing at matchmaking, possibly rather indiscriminately. At least, that is his impression.

  ‘Possibly rather indiscriminately, you think? Should we be offended?’ This allows them both to have a little chuckle.

  In Viv’s opinion it’s not matchmaking at all. ‘It might be a little diversion for Martin, but what he’s doing is enabling people to stay with their partners when a problematic situation has emerged. For one of them, that is.’ Although I assume our situation is problematic for Geoff too. Am I right? ‘Apparently his wife works with him.’

  Drummond doubts she has much input. Unlike Glover
she doesn’t meet the applicants face to face.

  ‘Still, you could argue that he’s performing a useful social service. Even if only in a well-intentioned, gentleman-amateur kind of way.’

  ‘One can only hope Glover is well-intentioned,’ the Bulldog says pensively. They have another cautious laugh.

  Viv thinks it gives people like them a framework. ‘Rather than going to bars or abandoning ourselves to the internet. Or trusting in fate. I suspect fate isn’t very interested in people our age, don’t you?’

  ‘Not at all, no. Much like the world in general.’

  Viv thinks the Bulldog resembles an illustration of Mr Gradgrind in Dickens’s Hard Times. Melancholy, elongated, gaunt. Not at all Byronic, but not entirely humourless either. She wonders about his private circumstances.

  ‘Did it take you a long time to decide to ring Martin, Drummond?’

  ‘Good lord, yes. Years.’ He ruminates on this sadly.

  ‘You don’t rush into things, as a rule?’

  A rueful smile. ‘Not as a rule. And what about you, Vivien?’

  ‘About two years.’ But it did take provocation. If it hadn’t been for the sentence, would she ever have reached the point of taking this initiative? ‘It was a slow burn, and then it accelerated in a rush. I was – jolted into action.’

  She learns that she is Drummond’s ninth introduction in as many months. He’s not very forthcoming on the matter, and she has no desire to pry (or no desire that can’t be heroically suppressed) but she gathers the enterprise has not, thus far, borne fruit. Which might be where the possibly rather indiscriminately comes from.

  He’s inclined to be choosy, she imagines? She has assumed he is her senior by a few years. We’re not easy to please at our age, she goes on, let’s face it. We’re too fussy, aren’t we? Or shall we say, too discriminating?

  That sounds more palatable, he agrees. And he fears, speaking for himself, that he’s set in his ways.

  ‘Set in our tastes, perhaps.’ Viv hopes she is not especially set in her ways. Of course, he will have been told she is in her late fifties. She recalls the files in Mr Byron Blake’s dental surgery. They will certainly contain her date of birth. The Bulldog is not the only one to have engaged in a spot of subterfuge. She recalls that Geoff is also one of Mr Blake’s patients.